In my life, bad news rarely arrives with
blue skies and a warm, lovely bright sun.
It waits for a dense cover of low, angry
grey clouds, heavy with a scary cargo
of fears that all begin with “what if…”
For me “what if” is like the heavy wool
coat that we in this corner of northeast Ohio
always have in the trunk of the car – just-in-
case, knowing that the weather can and will
change several times in a day.
Here we all say that we really like the weather,
kinda like a boxer says he doesn’t mind the punch.
"You get used to it," we shrug, with rain tapping
hard on the windows like it knows our names.
But on blue-sky days, when the world around us
turns weightless and soft, we carry ourselves lighter,
pretending that the sun can solve things.
We say, “Everything’s fine.”
That passing in the hallway at work kind of fine.
“How’s it going?”
“Fine.”
True, or not. It doesn’t matter. We’re fluent in
the language.
Someone always says, “There’s not a cloud in the sky,”
like it’s a charm. A shield. As if the absence of gray
meant the absence of grief.
Then comes the ping.
A sound not meant to be heard in daylight.
Out of place. Out of time.
It curls up in your gut, a ripple in the still
lake of the day.
You fumble. Glasses. Phone. Battery check.
Stalling.
Then the words—small, still, but loud enough
to bend your world.
You read them once. Twice. Scroll up. Down.
Looking for something to rewrite the truth.
Waiting for the three rolling dots…that maybe,
hopefully, will spell out “Never mind. All is well.”
But nothing comes.
You’re waiting for the hard clap of thunder.
Honestly you would’ve traded anything
for a sky that roared, for wind that rattled
the glass instead of this quiet devastation.
You stare at the screen, willing the letters
to shape-shift. To somehow, someway soften.
To unsay what they said.
Then comes the ache—behind the right eye,
always behind the right eye, predictable as
the spring rain.
You know it well. You know how it lingers,
until skies clear and the pressure lets go.
My father always used to say, “Don’t worry, Lad.
Everything will be okay.”
He said it like a mantra, hoping that he could
imprint it in my code, so I could look up at the
sky and no matter what I saw, no matter what
the forecast was calling for, real or imagined,
that I could honestly believe that in the end,
all would be well.
That all will “be okay.”
“Storms don’t last forever, Lad. You’ll see.”
I believe that he was right.
I look at him now like I did as a child, my eyes wide,
with absolute trust and the knowledge that he would
never steer me wrong.
Just the same, I know that no matter where we are—
when standing at the screen door, with arms folded,
looking to the horizon, chin lifted into to the wind with
the cool, ozone scented air filling your nostrils, the coming
storm always smells the same.
